Phonological Rules

Iman Mingher Obied

University of Babylon,College of Basic Education
basic.iman.mingher@uobabylon.edu.iq
Abstract
The study sheds light on the phonological rules as part of communication used
through language. It tackles the reasons behind them, types, characteristics and
functions. Finally, it focuses on conclusion that reaches at.
Key words:Phonological rules, Generative Theory, Assimilation, Dissimilation,
Deletion, Insertion, Metathesis.
‫ﺍﻟﻤﻠﺨﺹ‬
‫ ﻭﻫﻭ‬.‫ﺍﻟﺩﺭﺍﺴﺔ ﺘﺴﻠﻁ ﺍﻟﻀﻭﺀ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﻘﻭﺍﻋﺩ ﺍﻟﻔﻭﻨﻭﻟﻭﺠﻴﺔ ﻜﺠﺯﺀ ﻤﻥ ﺍﻻﺘﺼﺎل ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺘﺨﺩﻤﺔ ﻤﻥ ﺨﻼل ﺍﻟﻠﻐﺔ‬
‫ ﻓﺈﻨﻪ ﻴﺭﻜﺯ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻻﺴﺘﻨﺘﺎﺝ ﺍﻟﺫﻱ‬،‫ ﻭﺃﺨﻴﺭﺍ‬.‫ ﻭﺃﻨﻭﺍﻉ ﻭﺨﺼﺎﺌﺹ ﻭﻭﻅﺎﺌﻑ‬،‫ﻴﺘﻨﺎﻭل ﺍﻷﺴﺒﺎﺏ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺘﻘﻑ ﻭﺭﺍﺀﻫﺎ‬
.‫ﻴﺼل ﻓﻲ‬
‫ ﻭﺼﻔﺕ ﺍﻻﺒﺩﺍل‬،‫ ﺇﺩﺭﺍﺝ‬،‫ ﺤﺫﻑ‬،‫ ﻋﻜﺱ ﺍﻟﺘﻤﺜل‬،‫ ﺍﻻﺴﺘﻴﻌﺎﺏ‬،‫ ﺍﻟﻤﻭﻟﺩﺓ ﻨﻅﺭﻴﺔ‬،‫ﻗﻭﺍﻋﺩ ﺍﻟﺼﻭﺘﻴﺔ‬:‫ﺍﻟﻜﻠﻤﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺘﺎﺤﻴﺔ‬
.‫ﻭﺍﻻﺤﻼل‬
1- What are Phonological Rules?
Phonological rules are part of communication through language, whether spoken
or written, and knowing what they are and why they exist can help us better
understand our world. Understanding phonological rules is considered an important
aspect in teaching English or working with people who have speech problems (2).
In order to understand the purpose of phonological rules, we need to understand
what a phoneme is. According to the traditional phonological theories a phoneme is
the minimal unit in the sound system of a language ( Crystal,1997:287) . Phonological
rules are the rules whether written or spoken that control how sounds change during
vocal communication.
Phonological rules describe how phonemes are realized as their allophones in a
given environment. Environment in phonology typically refers to neighboring
phonemes (2). John Golden Smith (1995) defines phonological rules as mappings
between two different levels of sound representation in this case, the abstract or
underlying level and the surface level. Bruce Hayes (2009) describes them as
"generalizations" about the different ways a sound can be pronounced in different
environments. That is to say, phonological rules describe how a speaker goes from the
abstract representation stored in their brain, to the actual sound they articulate when
they speak. In general, phonological rules start with the underlying representation of
a sound (the phoneme that is stored in the speaker's mind) and yield the final surface
form, or what the speaker actually pronounces. For example, the English plural -s may
be pronounced as[s] (in "cats"),[z] (in "cabs"), or as [ iz] (in "buses"); these forms are
all stored mentally as the same -s, but the surface pronunciations which are derived
through a phonological rule are different (5).
2- The Idea behind Phonological Rules
Generative phonologists, who have worked extensively with phonological rules,
work on the basic assumption that every speaker has a mental lexicon full of abstract
entries of phonological forms in his or her head. These abstract stored entries are
underlying representations and serve as input for the phonological rules. These
underlying forms then undergo a derivational process which is defined by the

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phonological rule. The output of that process is the phonetic representation of the
pronunciation (4).
underlying
representation Phonological rules Phonetic representation

Mohanan (1982:112)

Also phonological rules are used with lexical phonology in a sense that it is a
theory in which morphological and phonological rules are brought together within a
single framework (McMahun,2000,35).

underlying Phonetic representation

representation

Phonological Lexical representation Phonological rules

Rules
Mohanan (1982:112)
According to Katamba ( 1989:117) in English, we have the following phonetic
realizations to account for the formulation of such rules:

[p It] pit [p ul] pool

[th Ik] tick [t uk] took

[k i:l] keel [k ul] cool

[ət nd] attend [ək ustik] acoustic

Katamba ( ibid.) states that the rules needed to account for the above examples
are listed as follows:
(a) voiceless stops are aspirated at the beginning of a stressed syllable;
(b) consonants are labialized (rounded) before rounded vowels;
(c) velar consonants are fronted ( palatalized ) before high front vowels.
The above formal representation of the phonological rules will be changed into
algorithms using distinctive feature and formal notation. The restatement of the rules
from the forms above into the forms below will give us a clear conception about the
basic formal conventions of GP :
Input becomes output in the environment
(a)[-cont , - voice] → [+aspirated] / _ (c) [-cons , +stress]
e.g. /k/ becomes [kh] before a stressed
vowel ( as in acoustic
(b) [+cons] → [+round] / _ [-cons , +round]
e.g. /t / becomes [tw] before a rounded vowel
(as in too)

(c) [ +cons, +back , +high] → [- back] / _ [+high , - back]

e.g., /k/ becomes [k] before a high vowel
(as in key)
As it has been mentioned above , a formal rule consists of the following:
(1) the input, which states the sound or sounds affected by the rule;
(2) the arrow, which means " re-write as" , "is realized as" or " becomes";

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(3) what occurs to the right of the arrow is the output of the rule;
(4) following the output, there is a diagonal line '/ ' to the right of the line is the
environment, the ─ line which forms part of the environment shows exactly where the
changed segment is located;
(5) the brackets round an element like (c ) indicates that a given element is optional.
In this instance, it indicates that a voiceless plosive is still aspirated even when a
consonant intervenes, as in prayer.
3- Generative Theory
Generative phonology (GP) is the application of generative grammar to
phonology. Generative means rules that will describe possibilities in the language,
grammar, or phonology, they are developed to analyzed phonological systems of
languages around the world. These rules have proposed by Chomsky and Halle(1964)
as a central procedure of GP. The goal of this theory is to make precise and explicit
the ability of native speakers to produce and perceive or understand utterances of a
particular language. In generative phonology, the level of the phoneme is redefined to
match the deeper level of abstraction aimed for in the most efficient conception of
phonological processes. It is the task of the phonological rules to account for the
predictable aspects of pronunciation whether they relate to alternate pronunciations of
the same basic morpheme or different phonetic forms that a sound can take. These
rules, made to look like "mathematical formulas", provide an explicit means of
capturing the general principles of various phonological processes: 1) assimilation, 2)
dissimilation, 3) deletion, 4) insertion, and 5) metathesis. The incorporation of
distinctive features into a generative phonology allows the linguist to state explicitly
important generalizations about the phonology of a language (1).
4- Types of Phonological Rules
Phonological rules can be best understood through the following phonological
processes:
4-1 Assimilation
Hyman (1952:221-3) states that assimilation refers to all adaptive
modifications of a segment in a chain of segments by a neighboring segment.
According to Driven (2004:119), assimilation is a process whereby one sound causes
an adjacent sound to be “more similar” to itself.
Sounds become more like neighboring sounds
[n] ➝ [m]/__ [+bilabial]
Assimilation can be conditioned by preceding or following sounds.
Concerning types of assimilation, Hyman suggests that scholars classify
assimilations differently and he presents the following figure for this classification.
Types of Assimilation
Distinctiveness and stability Direction of change
of change
Progressive Regressive

Phonetic Morphologic
(Free variation) (Morphophonemic)
(Contextual) (Historical)
Phonemic
( Neutralization)
(Syncretism)

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 From the point of view of distinctiveness and stability of change, assimilation
patterns manifest three sub- types:

1- Phonetic, free variation or contextual assimilation. The change affects a certain

segment by selecting a certain variant of that segment.
For example, /m/ in triumph and nymph is rendered [ ]
( labiodental nasal) instead of bilabial [m] .
Similarly, infant /n/ is often rendered as [ ].
Also, /l/ is devoiced after /f/ and /k/ in flight and clean and lips are rounded in the
articulation of /p/, /k/, and /l/ in pool, cool, loom, respectively due to the occurrence of
rounded vowel /u:/ immediately after these consonant segments.
2- Phonemic assimilation is often referred to as "neutralisation'' or '' syncretism''. This
is more systematized, i.e., not subject to free variation. It also results in the
neutralization of two phonemes. For example:
/n/ and / / are neutralized in think / i k/, /v/ and /f/ in have to / haft tu/ , /z/ and /s/
in newspaper /'nju:speipə/, and so on. Dirven (2004:119) states that some
assimilations such as in newspaper are obligatory within word boundaries, however,
they are optional, and tend to be more frequent in the informal and relaxed the
speaking style.
3-Morphological or morphophonemic assimilation is one which affects a whole
morpheme. It usually decides the morpheme variant (allomorph) according to
morphophonemic rule. For example:
- The distribution of - s suffix ( plural, 3rd person singular, possessive, contracted
forms is and has ) show three allomorphs:
/- s / after voiceless consonants: stops, roots, Philip's, it's .
/- z/ after voiced segments : goes, boys, Tom's, he's.
/- iz/ after sibilant consonants: reaches, bridges, James's, George's.
Katamba ( 1989:82 ) points out that the alternation in the shape of a morpheme
is not arbitrary. Rather, it is phonologically conditioned. This means that the
allomorph of a morpheme that occurs in a given context is partly or wholly
determined by the sounds found in the allomorphs of adjacent morphemes. It is not
merely coincidence that is responsible for the allomorphs of the plural morpheme and
the third person plural being [-z -s -iz]. The suffix agrees in voicing with the
preceding sound.
-The distribution of – ed suffix ( past and past participle) shows three allomorphs:
/- d/ voiced segments: killed , named .
/- t/ after voiceless consonants: looked, stopped, reached.
/- id/ after /t/ and /d/ : wanted, added.
- The distribution of the presufix shows the following allomorphs:
/ il-/ before /l/ : illegal , illegitimate.
/ir-/ before /r/ " irregular.
/im/ before labial : immoral , impersonal, immortal.
From the point of view of the distribution of change, assimilation can be
progressive or regressive. When the change involves the following sound, it is called
"regressive assimilation" and when it involves a preceding sound it is called
"progressive assimilation".
The nasal is realised as:
(i) [m] before bilabial consonants (e.g. when one of [p b m] follows)
(ii) [n] before alveolar consonants (e.g. when one of [t d n s] follows)
(iii) [ ] before palatal consonants (e.g. when one of [c J follows)

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(iv) [ŋ] before velar consonants (e.g. when [k or g] follows)

- Progressive assimilation can be seen in the following cases :

a- the / -s/ morpheme of the plural becomes / -z/ when preceded by a voiced
consonant , e.g. , bag + s / bagz /, pencil + s / 'penslz/ .
b- /-d/ becomes /-t/ when preceded by a voiceless consonant: e.g., kick + ed /kikt/.
b- Regressive assimilation can be seen in the following patterns:
1- /n/ becomes /m/ under the influence of a labial consonant that follows. For
example, ten minutes / tem'minits/.
2- /d/ becomes /t/ when followed by a voiceless consonant. For example, used to
/'ju:st tu/.
3-/z/ becomes /s/ when followed by /p/ or /t/ , for example: newspaper /'nju:speipə/.
4- /n/ becomes / / when followed by /k/ as in income /'i k m/.
5- /v/ becomes /f/ when followed by /p/or /t/. Examples: five pence /faif pens/, have to
/haft u/ , fifth /fif /.
6- /s/ becomes / / when followed by / /. Example: horse shoe /ho: u:/.
7- Sometimes two sounds merge into one as in standpoint /'stampoint/
(Nathan,2008:77).
Another way in which assimilation processes can be seen is in terms of whether a
vowel or consonant acquires vowel or consonant features of a neighbouring segment.
when a velar consonant is followed by a front vowel, there occurs some slight
anticipatory fronting of the part of the tongue that makes contact with the roof of the
mouth. This fronting is indicated by a subscript (+) under the consonant. The effect of
the fronting is that the velar consonant is made partly in the palatal region. This
process is called palatalisation .
Velar consonants often have slightly palatalised allophones which occur after
front vowels because the tongue is raised towards the hard palate in the production of
front vowels and speakers anticipate that gesture and start making it before they have
completed the articulation of
[k] or [g].
Palatalisation is not limited to velar consonants. It is equally possible to
palatalise anterior consonants. In fast, speech, alveolar consonants are
usually palatalised when they occur at the end of a word and are followed by another
word which begins with an alveopalatal consonant:
his shoes [hiz Juz] —» [hi3 Juz]
nice shirt [nais J3t] —» [naij" /3t]
miss Ure [mis jua] —» [mif jua]
John's shorts [d3Dnz Jots] —* [d3Dn3 Jots]
Concerning labialization or rounding, anticipating the next segment which is a round
vowel, the speaker starts rounding the lips before the articulation of the consonant is
completed.
Pool [p ul]
Two [t u]
Shoe [ u]
Luke [ l uk]
4-2 Dissimilation
When a sound changes one of its features to become less similar to an
adjacent sound , usually to make the two sounds more distinguishable. This type of
rule is often seen among people speaking a language that is not their native language

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where the sound contrasts may be difficult so the rule is applied for ease of
production and perception (6).
In other words, a phonological process that changes feature values of segments to
make them less similar.
Annual annular
sexual secular
cultural cellular(cell)
penal perpendicular (7)
4-3 Deletion
When a sound, such as a stressless syllable or a weak consonant, is not
pronounced; for example, most American English speakers do not pronounce the [d]
in "handbag", [n] in "condemn", [k] in " know" (6).
So, it is a process by which a sound present in the phonemic form is removed
from the phonetic form in certain environments forease of production (3).
Lass (1984:186) suggests that there are three types of deletion: aphaeresis which
is initial deletion as in ( I am --- I'm, I have ----I 've ) or the initial loss of /k/ before /n/
as in know, knight , syncope is formative internal deletion: the term is most frequently
used with vowel loss, but some writers extend it to consonants as well. This can be
seen in American and British forms of certain words: /s kr t ri/ vs. /s kr tr /
'secretary', ' sign ', assign. Apocope is the loss of a final element as /t/ before a word
beginning with another consonant, ' last time, also low stress words may loss their
finals as in 'and', 'of'. Deletion is found in the Arabic language and the following
examples are stated form the holy Quran:

‫ ﺍﻨﺎﺭ‬----- ‫ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺭ‬
‫ ﺍﺸﻤﺱ‬----- ‫ﺍﻟﺸﻤﺱ‬
‫ ﻤﻨﻔﺱ‬---- ‫ﻤﻥ ﻨﻔﺱ‬
‫ ﺍﺭﻜﻤﻌﻨﺎ‬---- ‫ﺍﺭﻜﺏ ﻤﻌﻨﺎ‬
‫ ﻴﻠﻬﺫﻟﻙ‬----- ‫ﻴﻠﻬﺙ ﺫﻟﻙ‬
‫ ﺍﻅﻠﻤﻭﺍ‬----- ‫ﺍﺫ ﻅﻠﻤﻭﺍ‬
‫ ﻗﺎﻟﻁﺎﺌﻔﺔ‬---- ‫ﻗﺎﻟﺕ ﻁﺎﺌﻔﺔ‬
‫ ﻗﺘﺒﻴﻥ‬---- ‫ﻗﺩ ﺘﺒﻴﻥ‬
4-4 Insertion
Nathan (2008:82) asserts that not only can segments be deleted, sometimes
they can be inserted instead. There seem to be two basic reasons for insertion:
preventing clusters of consonants that violate syllable structure constraints in the
language, and easing transitions between segments that have multiple
incompatibilities. We’ll deal with each kind in turn. Again, there are Greek-based
terms for insertions at the beginning, middle and end.
Insertion at the beginning is observed in Spanish, where the language does not
permit onset clusters. Words that are inherited from Latin with such clusters changed
to have an initial /e/ inserted:
especial [espesial] ‘special’
estudiante [estudiante] ‘student’
escuela [eskwela] ‘school’

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 A particularly strange, but well-known kind of insertion is the famous
‘intrusive/linking r’ of British and some dialects of [American English]. In these
dialects a historical /r/ has been deleted in word-final coda position, but when the
word is followed by vowel initial words under complex and not-completely-
understood circumstances, the /r/ reappears, an example of ‘intrusive r’ is:
idea [aI diə]
idea is [aIdiərIz]
All of the examples we have seen so far involve insertion of vowels to break up
sequences of consonants that violate syllable structure constraints. In other cases the
/r/ reappears even when there was never an /r/ there in the first place (this is known as
‘intrusive r’). Typical examples of ‘linking r’ are
rear [riə]
rear end [rirεnd]
He adds (ibid.) that there are two types of insertion: prothesis and epenthesis, the
former refers to the insertion of a segment at the beginning while the latter refers to
the insertion inside a word.
Snoopy + /e/ ➝ /esnupi/ ( prothesis)
glass + plural /s/ ➝ /glæsəz/ (epenthesis)
ϕ ➝ [+stop] / [+nasal] __ [+fricative]
ϕ ➝ [ə] / [s] __ [z]
There is a special kind of epenthesis which involves inserting a schwa between
a liquid and another consonant. This occurs in nonstandard English between [θ] and
/r/ or /l/ in words such as the following:
arthritis [aəθəraInIs]
athlete [aθəlit]
Furthermore, he (ibid.) suggests that here is a different kind of epenthesis that is
fairly wide spread, involving the insertion of a stop between a nasal and a voiceless
fricative. Since movement from a nasal stop to a voiceless fricative involves three
simultaneous articulatory changes (lift velum, release closure, open vocal cords)
languages often prefer to sequence the three gesture changes as follows: lift velum
and open vocal cords simultaneously, then release closure. This amounts to inserting
a voiceless stop after the nasal. This change is an ongoing process in English, and has
also been a historical change. Here are some synchronic examples:
‘warmth’ [warmpθ]
‘hamster’ [hampst]
‘strength’ [strεŋkθ]
‘youngster’ [jϕ ŋkstә]
4-5 Metathesis
Phonological process that changes the order of phonemes
Old English vs. Contemporary English
asterix(ks) asterisk
comfterble comfortable
intregal integral
relator realtor
revelant relevant (7)
Lass (1984: 188) states that in old English there are interchanges of /p/ and
/s/ , as shown in spelling variants: /ps/ --- /sp/ in waspe 'wasp' , /sp/---/ps/ in apse aspe
'aspen' , cosp cops 'cope' , wlips 'lisping'. He adds that the metathesized forms wasp,

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copse are now standard. Another metathesis involves nasal sequences, specially /m/
and /n/: emnity for enmity, anemone for amenone.
5- Optional and Obligatory Rules
Some scholars make a distinction between optional phonological rules and
obligatory ones in a sense that the former may or may not apply in an individual's
speech such as palatalization, friction dissimilation, voiceless stop insertion, deletion;
they contribute to rate/style of speech, dialect variation; whereas the latter are applied
in the speech of all speakers of a language or dialect, regardless of style or rate of
speech such as nasalization, aspiration, devoicing , palatalization; they contribute to
native- sounding accent (3).
6- Characteristics
Hayes (2009) lists the following characteristics that all phonological rules have in
common.
1-Language specificity: A phonological rule that is present in one language may not
be present in other languages, or even in all dialects of a given language.
2-Productivity: Phonological rules apply even to new words. For example, if an
English speaker is asked to pronounce the plural of the nonsense word "wug" (i.e.
"wugs"), they pronounce the final s as [z], not [s], even though they have never used
the word before. (This kind of test is called the wug test ).
3-Untaught and unconscious: Speakers apply these rules without being aware of it,
and they acquire the rules early in life without any explicit teaching.
4-Intuitive: The rules give speakers intuitions about what words are "well-formed" or
"acceptable"; if a speaker hears a word that does not conform to the language's
phonological rules, the word will sound foreign or ill-formed (10).
7- Functions of Phonological Rules
Phonological rules have a number of functions, among them are the following:

1. Change feature values.

2. Add new features (distinctive / non distinctive): aspiration in English.
3. Delete segments: contraction rules in English.
4. Add segments (schwa insertion in plural and past tense)
5. Reorder segments (metathesis: sk to [ks]).
6. Phonological rules often refer to entire classes of sounds rather than to the
individual sounds(8).
7- Phonological rules are generated to account for what occurs in a language, they are
not originally used to describe children's and disordered speech however, they have
been applied to describe children's and disordered speech (11).
8- Conclusion
A phonological rule is a method for describing the way in which individual
sounds are produced in spoken languages . These rules are written out in a specialized
notation that codifies the way in which a sound or group of sounds is altered by
appearing in a specific linguistic context. Phonological rules vary between languages
and dialects, and they reflect the common pronunciation habits of various linguistic
groups. By studying the way that a particular phonological rule operates in a spoken
language, linguists are able to determine the physiological and neurological
mechanisms that translate mental language into spoken language.
References
Crystal, D. (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Blackwell Publishers.
Ltd.

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Dirven, R. (2004) Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics. University of
Duisburg.
Hyman, L. (1952) Phonology Theory and Analysis. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Katamba, F. (1989) An Introduction to Phonology. Longman and New York.
Lass, R. (1984) Phonology. CUP.
Nathan, G. (2008) Phonology. A Cognitive Grammar Introduction. USA.
McMahon,A.2000. Lexical Phonology and The History of English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.Mohanan,K.P.1982.Lexcical Phonology
http://lolita.unice.fr/~scheer/interface/Mohanan%2082%20PhD%20-
%20Lexical%20Phonology.pdf

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(3 )www.writework.com/essay/significance-function-phonological-rules
(4) coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/.../Summer04/HTHS/Salffner/phonrules.html
(5) www.tutorgigpedia.com/ed/Phonological_rule
(6) pediaview.com/openpedia/Phonological_rule.
(7) Phonology 2005 Linguistics An Introduction to Language and
Communication.
(8) 24.900: Introduction to Linguistics Phonology Class 3 April 13, 2005
(9) ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-900-introduction
(10) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_ rule.
(11) clas.mq.edu.au/speech/phonetics/phonology/generative/

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